Never Too Late for Love (9 page)

"Just call the Salvation Army. They'll come and pick
up the carton."

She stood close to him and he felt her towering presence as
she watched him with lowered eyes. Then she bent down and kissed his cheek.

"Remember that I'm here, Murray. If there is anything,
anything." Her voice rose emphatically on the second anything. "Just
call me." She started out the door, then turned for a moment.
"Whatever they tell you," she said. "I was the closest to Sarah.
She confided things to me." Then she was gone.

He stood watching the door for a long time, marveling at
the devotion of Sarah's friends, and the goodness in his wife that could
motivate such an outpouring. Maybe they had their little quirks between them,
he decided, assuming that this was just one of those odd manifestations in the
world of women.

In the days that followed, as he forced himself to adjust
to Sarah's absence, he had ample time to observe these manifestations as the
women ministered to his needs. Minnie Schwartz made it a regular practice to
arrive at his doorstep every morning to make him breakfast. Ida Katz would show
up in midmorning to "tidy up," and Lily Morganstern was always
dropping by with items from the store. Without his realizing it, it became a
regular routine. He continued to be grateful and he did admit that it chased
away the blues to have a woman puttering around his now-empty apartment, but
the tug of guilt was unmistakable.

"I want you to know Minnie," he said one morning,
"how much I appreciate what you're doing. But I feel that I may be
unnecessarily taking up your time."

"My time, Murray? I got better things to do?"

"I feel guilty," he admitted. "I mean,
you've all been so nice."

"All?" He had learned to avoid any mention of the
others to any of them, because their reactions were becoming increasingly
inflammatory. It was a brief lapse and he regretted it too late.

"At least I'm sincere."

"Sincere?" He wondered what that meant.

She bent close to him and whispered. "At least I don't
have motives."

"I don't understand," he said. She sat down
beside him at the kitchen table.

"Why do you need them? I can come in and do the
cleaning and the shopping. What better things can I do than that?"

"But you have your own life."

"I owe it to Sarah."

At the mention of Sarah's name, he nodded. It was a form of
consent, since even beyond the grave he imagined that they might be fulfilling
Sarah's wishes. Besides, he thought, it's only temporary.

Thankfully, too, his nights were filled, as each woman
would rotate his having dinner at their places. And what dinners! He was being
stuffed with every imaginable dish--varnishkas, pot roasts, stuffed turkeys--a
cornucopia of special concoctions that left him reeling and bloated each
evening.

"You like my stuffing?" Ida Katz would ask,
calling attention to each preparation. He would, of course, nod politely, his
mouth full.

"Better than them," she would insist.

"Marvelous."

The others, too, had their own ways of calling attention to
their culinary ardor.

"Did I tell you I was a fantastic cook?" Lily
Morganstern would say. "I'm a real cook. Not a Johnny-come-lately."

"No question."

But he would go home to his empty bed, still missing
Sarah's presence beside him, although he was thankful that she had provided
friends to take the edge off some of his loneliness.

One night, after he had taken his ritual Alka-Seltzer and
was preparing for bed, he heard a knock on the door, put on his robe and
answered it. A large, heavily made up woman stood before him, vaguely familiar.

"Remember me? Harriet Bernstein from across the
court."

"Of course," he lied, though her presence was
stimulating his recall.

"Can I come in?" Before he could answer, she had
insinuated herself through the door to the inside of his apartment.

"I was away visiting my daughter for a few weeks. Then
when I got back, I realized I hadn't visited since the funeral so I thought I
might stop by for a minute."

He observed her taking a sweeping look about the apartment,
then sat down on the couch and patted the seat next to her own, an invitation
which, oddly, he obeyed.

"So how are you getting along?" she asked. He
could smell the special sweetness of her scent, which filled the air around
him.

"Thank God," he said, "Sarah had wonderful
friends."

"The widows?" She clicked her tongue in an
attitude of derision. "They come out of the woodwork," she said,
jabbing him in the arm. Recoiling, he looked at her curiously.

"They're wonderful people," he said.
"Sarah's friends."

"You should live so long."

"I don't understand." He was genuinely surprised
by her reaction. He watched her. She was a well-kept woman, who, despite her
heavy make-up, had a lively air, although her pose seemed cynical, almost
contemptuous.

"It's not important," she said, pausing.
"I'm also a widow. Believe me, I know."

"Know what?"

"What's happening."

"What's happening?"

Harriet Bernstein smiled, showing even, perfectly matched
and obviously false teeth. She put a hand on his thigh. He let it stay there,
embarrassed, not knowing what to do. An old, rarely felt feeling, stirred.

"You know, a widow is a very dangerous
commodity."

"Dangerous?" He was trying to listen, but his mind
seemed concentrated on her hand, which had begun to move, stroking his thigh.

"Can you blame them?" she said, lowering her
voice and squeezing the heavy flesh of his thigh.

He knew his mind was trying to understand, but he was
coping with feelings and reactions foreign to his recent history. Something
visibly physical was happening.

"A widow's life is very lonely."

"A widower is no picnic." Would Sarah understand,
he wondered?

"You were a friend of Sarah's?" he asked, the
words moving quickly on waves of accelerated breathing. He felt his pulse
pound. The knowledge of what was happening beneath his pajamas seemed like a
miracle. He was afraid if he talked too much, it would go away.

"Not really."

It seemed better that way, he decided, as the woman's hands
found the thing that had happened.

"I can tell you're a very lonely man," Harriet
said, her hand deliberately probing now. She stopped suddenly in her
ministrations.

"You think maybe we should go into the bedroom?"
she asked.

He grunted, afraid that a single word might make it go
away. But she got up and, gripping his hand, led him to the bedroom. The room
was dark and he was surprised that he felt only the vaguest tug of guilt. After
all, she wasn't a friend of Sarah's. Thoughts of Sarah did, however, intrude on
the miracle that Harriet was making happen.

He lay down on the bed and felt the stirring of anxiety
that Harriet must have sensed as she lay down beside him.

"Relax boobala," she said, the endearing term odd
to his ears, since it had been so long since any endearment had been directed
his way. He felt her soft touch and again the renewed sense of his sexuality.

"You see," she said. He nodded gratefully,
stirred by his pride in himself as he heard zippers grating, the crinkling of
her clothes, then the touch of her soft flesh.

"Such a wonderful man. Such a marvelous man," she
said as she maneuvered herself under him, in a comfortable coital posture. She
began a low moaning sound, as she caressed him and moved her body in a
rhythmical gyration. He was not thinking of Sarah now, only of the matter at
hand, his own sense of wonder at this miracle that Harriet had wrought.

"You feel good?" she asked suddenly, the moans
stopping briefly. He did not reply in words, stroking her breast instead. Then
he felt the climax of this miracle and lay still, listening to the heavy beat
of his heart. It was only then that he remembered Sarah, but he was growing too
drowsy to think about it.

A shrill sound awakened him out of a tight, dreamless
sleep. He opened his eyes, disoriented, waiting for the sound to identify
itself. It was a woman's voice, raucous, like the sound in a bird zoo, despotic
and grating.

"Disgusting. This is disgusting." He caught words
first, confused until he saw Harriet Berstein cowering under the covers beside
him. Minnie Schwartz, her face red with anger, her eyes popping precariously
out of her head, stood over them.

"This is the way you repay my goodness, my feeling for
Sarah. In bed with a korva." It was, he knew, the ultimate expression for
perfidious women, the Russian/Yiddish word for whore.

"You only wish it was you," Harriet spat back.

"I wish?" She turned to Murray. "I need him
like a hole in the head." Then she stormed out of the bedroom and he heard
the door slam, trembling the loose contents of the apartment.

"She's your keeper?" Harriet asked. She had
gotten out of bed and slipped on her dress from the previous night. "They
get their claws on a widower and they think he's their property."

He was confused, ashamed, but remembering the night before,
he felt strangely indifferent to Minnie's words.

"She comes in every morning to make me
breakfast," he said, getting out of bed and putting on his robe.

"Big deal."

"She was close to Sarah," he said
self-righteously, as if the information could explain what had happened.

"You think she did it for Sarah?"

"For who, then?"

She had been looking into the mirror, patting her bleached
hair in place, when she turned suddenly to him. She shook her head and lifted
one hand, palm inward, moving it like a fan.

"Are you such a putz, Murray?" she asked. The
word, ejaculated suddenly, shocked him.

"You're a man, a widower, a single. That's your
qualification. You're a catch."

"Me, a catch?" He couldn't believe what she was
saying, but before he had time to reply, the telephone rang. He picked it up in
the kitchen.

"I don't believe it." It was Lily Morganstern's
voice. He suspected what she meant and grimaced into the phone. Harriet
Bernstein watching, caught the meaning instantly.

"The yenta communication system," she muttered.

"Minnie told me," Lily continued, her voice
breaking. "She was crying, hysterical. I said it must be impossible. Murray Gold. Our Murray Gold, with Sarah's body not yet cold in her grave."

He held a hand over the phone's mouthpiece. "What can
I say?" Then he removed his hand.

"What can I say?" he said into the mouthpiece,
shrugging his shoulders.

"What kind of a man are you? After we took such good
care of you." She paused. "For Sarah's sake."

"What can I say?" he repeated. He waited for her
next response, not wanting to be impolite. He watched Harriet walk into the
bathroom, heard water running.

"You think maybe we should talk?" Lily
Morganstern said finally. Her anger seemed spent. "I don't know about
Minnie, but I'm willing to forgive and forget." She paused. "I know a
little something about men, especially on special occasions. A man's a
man." She lowered her voice. "She's still there?"

"She's in the bathroom."

"You made no commitment?"

"Commitment?" He wondered what she meant.

But she must have sensed his response by his uncertainty.

"Good. Very wise. Don't rush into things. Think it
over a while. You shouldn't rush, especially now."

"Rush?"

"Anyway, I'll be over later and we'll talk."

She hung up. Another ring followed immediately. He answered
it instantly.

"I want you to know," Ida Katz said, "that
it doesn't make any difference."

"It doesn't?"

"From Minnie's point of view, I can understand it. But
from mine..." It was, to him, an incomplete thought. But he let it pass.

"What can I say?"

"I only have a word of advice. The woman has a
reputation. It's not the first time. Just don't make any rash mistakes. I
personally am willing to forgive, and I want you to know that I'm still
expecting you for dinner tonight."

He had forgotten. Luckily, they were always reminding him.
Harriet Bernstein came out of the bathroom.

"Same time?" he asked the voice on the phone.

"Of course. I made a special stuffing. You want maybe
I should get some wine?"

"I'm not a drinker."

"Just don't aggravate yourself. I'm sure you're not
going to let it happen again."

He did not respond. Harriet watched him. Then he hung up.

"Another one?"

"They've been so nice to me."

"Why not?"

"I'm no big deal."

"To you, you're not a big deal. To Sarah, maybe you
weren't such a big deal. To the yenta widows of Sunset Village, you're a big
deal." He watched her. She held herself straight, gathering her own sense
of dignity.

"A single man is hard to find," she said sadly,
shaking her head. "In a few more months, you'll be so spoiled, you'll
become a selfish quvetch."

"Me?" It was an idea so contrary to his own
self-image that he smiled. It was the first time since Sarah had died that he
had smiled publicly, although he knew he had smiled to himself last night.

"Then you'll get so fatumilt, you'll probably settle
down with one of us. It's not so easy to break old habits.... "She pointed
a finger at her chest. "Believe me, I know."

She started for the door, hesitating.

"And you'll be a celebrity. You'll be the big story of
the week."

"Me?"

"Who else?"

He wanted to call her back, to have her explain further
what she meant. He went to the window and watched her cross the street, staying
there long after she disappeared. I'm alone, Sarah, he implored, knowing his
lips had moved. What should I do? he asked aloud. He paused, listening.